Кассандра Клэр - Draco Veritas

He heard them laugh.

He dropped his sword, raised his hand high. He no longer feared to be detected by Voldemort; he would take as many of them down with him as he could.

They were pounding up the hill towards him, a sea of moving black robes.

He opened his mouth, ready to speak the Killing Curse — and light blazed from his hand. He staggered back, shocked. He hadn't spoken a spell, so how — ? From the runic band on his wrist a bright light began to blaze. The light grew: a glimmer at first, then brighter and brighter, and he saw Voldemort's soldiers fall back, hands thrown up over their faces. They were screaming, as if the light pained them. One by one they fell, staggering, stumbling back, and their cries filled the night.

Harry would never be able to describe the precise color of the light. It was red, but no red he had ever seen before. More red than sunset, more translucent than blood, brighter than fire. It lit the sky like daylight. It was too bright to look upon. He cried out and turned his face away, but even then he could see the afterglow imprinted on the backs of his eyelids.

Then it vanished, silently and instantly. The sky went dark. Slowly, he opened his eyes. He was standing in a field of corpses;all around him in a circle lay Voldemort's dead guards, their bodies twisted, hands still flung up to ward off some terrible blow. He bent to pick up his sword, and only when he straightened up did he see that the runic band was gone, -

having done what it was made to do, it had sifted from his wrist in a fine spray of black ashes.

Tom moved towards her. Ginny braced herself for the look of shock and dawning anger on his face when he saw Draco, her mind whirling through a series of useless excuses. Tom, I'm so sorry, I never -

"Ginny," he said. "Rhysenn told me you wished to see me. You do realize that I'm quite busy at the moment?"

She stared at him. He looked back at her, boredom and impatience evident in every line of his face.

Very slowly, Ginny turned around and looked behind her. Draco was nowhere to be seen. In a way, it was worse than Tom's sudden appearance. In her surprise, she sank down on the bed, open-mouthed.

"Cease gaping at me, Ginny," Tom said sharply. ""Stand up."

She rose to her feet obediently, and the heavy folds of her robes spilled down around her, silver and blue, green and gold. A hot light flared up in Tom's face, the look of a goblin staring at a bank vault full of Galleons. His sensual mouth curved. She had time to think only that Hermione had been right, when he closed the distance between them and gathered her wrists in one hand. His other hand went to her hair and caught the ribbon that bound her plait, tugging it sharply free. Ginny flinched, but he ignored her, his long fingers catching in her hair as he shook it down over her shoulders.

"I prefer your hair down," he said.

"Whatever you like, Tom."

He dropped the ribbon. It curled on the floor like a coiled snake. "Is this why you wanted to see me?" he asked, brushing the backs of his knuckles against her collarbone, a languid caress that made her shiver half-unpleasantly.

"No," she said quickly, and although he didn't take his hand away, he did cock an eyebrow curiously. "I wanted to ask you if I could come to the ceremony. I want to watch you ascend to power."

"There's a good chance the ceremony will kill your brother," Tom said, offhandedly, twirling a lock of her hair between his fingers.

"I know," Ginny said, "but I must learn to bear these things, mustn't I, if I'm going to rule the world at your side?" She wondered if her nausea and anger sounded in her voice — and if the gig would be up if they did, but Tom merely smiled lazily, and caught a handful of her hair between his fingers, dragging her face closer to his. She knew he meant to kiss her, and it took all her strength not to pull away. His mouth was cold, and tasted of ice and wine on the verge of becoming vinegar.

The kiss ended, and Ginny stood, the world tilting around her. "You won't learn to bear these things," Tom said. "If you aren't born with the ability to bear them, you can't learn it, but that's just as well. You're more lovely when you're unhappy." He let her go. "It doesn't matter what you want," he said matter-of-factly, "the Dark Lord wants you all in the Ceremonial Chamber to watch him take power. I expect he will chain you to the wall. I may leave you in your chains when it is all over," he added with a smile, "and take my pleasure with you that way; I think I would enjoy that."

He bent to kiss her again, when, suddenly, the windowpanes rattled; Ginny turned in time to see the whole room illuminated with a flash of frighteningly bright scarlet light. It seemed to bathe the room in blood.

She cried out and cringed, though the reddened sky was already fading back to black. "What was that?"

Tom had let her go; he was staring at the window with his hand half-raised. Without another word, he turned on his heel and stalked from the room, vanishing as he neared the wall. How does he get out of here?

Ginny thought. She wondered what the scarlet light meant, and why it had startled Tom. Had Harry killed Voldemort at last? Was there some Gryffindor equivalent to the Dark Mark?

A thump sounded behind her. She turned to see Draco clambering out from under the bed. He stood up, coughing and looking somewhat the worse for wear. "I take it Voldemort has gotten rid of the maid service," he said. "There are some quite appalling dust bunnies under that bed. I swear one of them was looking at me."

Ginny was staring towards the window. "What was that light?"

"I don't know," Draco said tensely, "but it's a good thing it went off like that, because in another second I would have been out from under the bed and chopping that slimy git's hands off. Has he hurt you?"

"Tom wouldn't hurt me," she said dully.

Draco leaned against the bedpost. "Come here," he said, and she went, although she was growing quite tired of back-and-forthing where some boy had told her to go. Still, this was Draco, and she loved him, and he was only asking because he was too ill to make any more effort than he must.

Draco touched his fingers lightly to the skin above her collarbone, as Tom had done.

"What are you doing?"

"Looking for bruises," he said. "The last time I was in the same room with you, my Ginny, it wasn't you at all. It was a prostitute Tom had paid to Polyjuice herself into your likeness. And he'd strangled her, and left her dead on the whorehouse floor."

"What were you doing in a whorehouse?" Ginny asked, astonished.

Draco grinned crookedly. "I was young; I needed the money."

"Oh shut up," Ginny grinned back. She paused. "You're serious. - That really happened?"

He nodded.

"Oh," she said faintly. "That's so disgusting. And that poor girl. It's my fault, isn't it?"

"No," Draco said. "And I think we've all had enough of blaming ourselves for things we couldn't possibly have been responsible for, don't you?" He regarded her quizzically. "He loves you, you know." he said. "He may be a deranged psychopath who kills everyone in his path, but in his own sick, revolting way, he does love you."

"Well," Ginny said. "There are worse things than not being loved, aren't there?"

A flash of great sadness passed across his face. "Some," he said, and bent to pick up the ribbon that had fallen at her feet. "Do you want this?"

"No," Ginny said. "If I wear it, it will only make Tom angry."

"Then I'll wear it," Draco said, and wound it around and around his left wrist, and tied it there. He put out a hand, and pushed the heavy hair, all draggled where Tom had ripped his fingers through it, back from her face. "If I get a chance to kill him for you," he said, "I will."